By Zweli Martin Dlamini

MBABANE:SwaziPharm Director Kareem Ashraff has been allegedly defrauded over R30million by his alleged business partner Dave Melvin.

It has been disclosed that, part of the money that Ashraff claimed SwaziPharm was being owed by Government, was actually paid to an ‘old’ bank account where Dave Melvin who sold some shares to Kareem Ashraff “is a signatory”.

Dave Melvin allegedly did this by submitting invoices with the banking details of the previous account used by SwaziPharm before he sold the shares to Kareem Ashraff.

But the matter created tension within the Ministry of Health as Kareem Ashraff is alleged to have vigorously demanded answers as to why, the payments were made to an account to which he does not have any control.

When asked about the matter,a senior official within the Ministry of Health said,the matter was so serious such that, Ashraff tried to change the bank account from Standard Bank to the First National Bank(FNB), the Standard Bank account “is allegedly controlled by Melvin” while Ashraff controls the First National Bank account.

“I may not be sure if you reffering to the same matter but the issue of bank accounts was even handled by the then Ministry of Finance Principal Secretary(PS) Sizakele Dlamini, Ashraff wanted to change the bank accounts from Standard Bank to FNB but, Sizakele refused saying the banking details must be the same as those in the tender documents.Maybe if you can call Sizakele,she can comment and share more information,” said the senior official in the Ministry of Health.

Swazipharm Director who doubles as Ashraff’s business partner Dave Melvin avoided questions regarding this matter, while efforts to reach Ashraff proved unsuccessful at the time of compiling this report.

Reached for comments on Friday evening, Mlungisi Makhanya,the President of the People’s United Democratic Movement(PUDEMO) said, “there’s no honour amongst thieves.

Makhanya alleged that Ashraff, Dave and others who are allegedly involved in the looting of public funds within the Ministry of Health, are King Mswati’s thieves.

“We can only say there’s no honour amongst thieves,the root cause and genesis of the problem in our country remain political in the sense that, the entire system is corrupt. It is built in a corrupt foundation and it can only re-produce corruption. So we are concerned about the fact that, our people continue to die unnecessarily as a result of the absence of medication in public hospitals.We hold Mswati and his regime liable for the unnecessarily death of our people.Dave, Ashraff, Zinhle and all these thieves are a creation and product of Mswati and his corrupt regime. We are not going to be focusing on lizards when we know that crocodiles are our source of misery”,said the PUDEMO President.

When asked to respond to the allegations made by the PUDEMO President against Mswati, King’s Spokesperson Percy Simelane urged Makhanya to produce evidence linking the King to Kareem Ashraff and the alleged looting within the Ministry of Health.

“Until he shares evidence, his weird accusations will continue to be void of substance and credibility to all normal thinking persons. To the best of our knowledge, the King is larger than street pickpocketing,” said the King’s Spokesperson.